"Cattle and Cane" is a song by the Australian

alternative rock Alternative rock, or alt-rock, is a category of rock music that emerged from the independent music underground of the 1970s and became widely popular in the 1990s. "Alternative" refers to the genre's distinction from mainstream or commerci ...

band

The Go-Betweens The Go-Betweens were an Australian indie rock band formed in Brisbane, Queensland, in 1977. The band was co-founded and led by singer-songwriters and guitarists Robert Forster and Grant McLennan, who were its only constant members throughout ...

, released as the first single from their second album '' Before Hollywood''. It was released as a single in the United Kingdom by Rough Trade Records in February 1983 and reached No. 4 on the UK Independent Chart. The single and album were both released in Australia on Stunn, a small label allied with

EMI EMI Group Limited (originally an initialism for Electric and Musical Industries, also referred to as EMI Records Ltd. or simply EMI) was a British Transnational corporation, transnational Conglomerate (company), conglomerate founded in March 1 ...

. The Stunn pressings were of poor quality and their distribution limited. Vocalist and bass guitarist

Grant McLennan Grant William McLennan (12 February 19586 May 2006) was an Australian alternative rock singer-songwriter-guitarist. He co-founded the Go-Betweens with Robert Forster in Brisbane in 1977. In addition to his work with the Go-Betweens (1977–89, ...

wrote the lyrics for his mother as an autobiographical description of his return home to a

Queensland ) , nickname = Sunshine State , image_map = Queensland in Australia.svg , map_caption = Location of Queensland in Australia , subdivision_type = Country , subdivision_name = Australia , established_title = Before federation , establishe ...

farm when a boy. He used Nick Cave's acoustic guitar while staying at Cave's London apartment. Vocalist and guitarist

Robert Forster Robert Wallace Forster Jr. (July 13, 1941 – October 11, 2019) was an American actor, known for his roles as John Cassellis in '' Medium Cool'' (1969), Captain Dan Holland in ''The Black Hole'' (1979), Abdul Rafai in '' The Delta Force'' (1986 ...

co-wrote the song. Drummer

Lindy Morrison Belinda "Lindy" Morrison (born 2 November 1951) is an Australian musician originally from Brisbane, Queensland. She was the drummer in indie rock group the Go-Betweens from 1980 to 1989, appearing on all of the band's releases from their first L ...

also supplied backing vocals. The single and album both failed to appear on the relevant Australian Kent Music Report Top 50 charts. In May 2001, "Cattle and Cane" was selected by Australasian Performing Right Association (APRA) as one of the Top 30 Australian songs of all time.

Background

"Cattle and Cane" was recorded by Australian rock band

in October 1982 at I.C.C. Studios in

Eastbourne Eastbourne () is a town and seaside resort in East Sussex, on the south coast of England, east of Brighton and south of London. Eastbourne is immediately east of Beachy Head, the highest chalk sea cliff in Great Britain and part of the la ...

, United Kingdom with John Brand producing. Formed in

Brisbane Brisbane ( ) is the capital and most populous city of the Australian state of Queensland, and the third-most populous city in Australia and Oceania, with a population of approximately 2.6 million. Brisbane lies at the centre of the South ...

in 1977, the band signed with Missing Link Records in 1981 with the line-up of

on vocals, lead guitar and rhythm guitar;

on vocals, bass guitar and guitars; and

on drums and backing vocals.McFarlan
'The Go-Betweens'
entry. Retrieved 8 April 2010. Their debut album, '' Send Me a Lullaby'', was released as an eight-track in Australia in November. It was expanded with four bonus tracks when released in UK on Rough Trade Records in February 1982. The Go-Betweens released "Cattle and Cane" in late February 1983, ahead of their second album, '' Before Hollywood,'' which appeared in May. The single and album were both released in Australia on Stunn, a small label allied with

. The Stunn pressings were of poor quality and their distribution limited. The B-side on the Stunn recordings was "Man O'Sand to Girl O'Sea" with newly joined bass guitarist Robert Vickers on board, which freed McLennan for lead guitar work. The group recorded a video for the single in May, six weeks after its UK release. It was filmed in an antique shop in Fulham, with Vickers miming playing the bass guitar, to portray group solidarity, even though he didn't play on the actual recording.

Song development

"Cattle and Cane" is an autobiographical story of McLennan as a schoolboy embarked on a journey home, evoking memories of a "house of tin and timber," the train edging him closer to the past "through fields of cattle, through fields of cane." McLennan wrote it while using Nick Cave's acoustic guitar in Cave's London apartment in 1982, whilst Cave was comatose after injecting heroin. In 1983, McLennan described writing the song: Lindy Morrison later said:

The Canberra Times ''The Canberra Times'' is a daily newspaper in Canberra, Australia, which is published by Australian Community Media. It was founded in 1926, and has changed ownership and format several times. History ''The Canberra Times'' was launched in ...

noted, "The three verses by McLennan cover three phases of his life to date in a series of images – the primary schoolboy scrambling through cane fields, the adolescent in boarding school losing his late father's watch in the showers, the young man at university discovering a bigger brighter world – and then the fourth phase of his life: Robert Forster, playing himself." A feature of the song is the unusual

time signature The time signature (also known as meter signature, metre signature, or measure signature) is a notational convention used in Western musical notation to specify how many beats (pulses) are contained in each measure (bar), and which note va ...

used in most it, which is explained by Morrison in a radio interview: "Grant had written that song and ��he wrote it in that time signature. It's a bar of five, then a bar of two, then a bar of four, so the phrase is eleven beats ��but when you get to the chorus it goes to four-four. The final section is ��over the verse chord ��back into the eleven pattern." McLennan had already acknowledged the importance of Morrison's drum part on the song: "It had a great rhythm which I don't think any drummer in the world could've played except her. That rhythm never ceases to amaze me." Forster later said, "Grant managed to create something new in the Australian songbook with 'Cattle and Cane.' When he first played me the riff I thought it was like one of a number of his that were good, but it was the lyric that did it. The music is quite sort of post-punky, but the lyric is just like

Slim Dusty Slim Dusty, AO MBE (born David Gordon Kirkpatrick; 13 June 1927 – 19 September 2003) was an Australian country music singer-songwriter, guitarist and producer. He was an Australian cultural icon and one of the country's most awarded stars ...

, it's

Banjo Paterson Andrew Barton "Banjo" Paterson, (17 February 18645 February 1941) was an Australian bush poet, journalist and author. He wrote many ballads and poems about Australian life, focusing particularly on the rural and outback areas, including the ...

or something."

Reception and influence

"Cattle and Cane" reached No. 4 on the UK Independent Charts in 1983. The single and album both failed to appear on the relevant Australian Kent Music Report Top 50 charts. However, "Cattle and Cane"'s popularity saw it reach No. 11 in Triple J's Hottest 100 for 1989, No. 27 in

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and No. 96 in the

1991 File:1991 Events Collage.png, From left, clockwise: Boris Yeltsin, elected as Russia's first president, waves the new flag of Russia after the 1991 Soviet coup d'état attempt, orchestrated by Soviet hardliners; Mount Pinatubo erupts in the Phi ...

. The song was also selected by ''

NME ''New Musical Express'' (''NME'') is a British music, film, gaming, and culture website and brand. Founded as a newspaper in 1952, with the publication being referred to as a 'rock inkie', the NME would become a magazine that ended up as a f ...

'' writers in their '100 Best Indie Singles Ever' in 1992. In

AllMusic AllMusic (previously known as All Music Guide and AMG) is an American online music database. It catalogs more than three million album entries and 30 million tracks, as well as information on musicians and bands. Initiated in 1991, the databa ...

's review of ''Before Hollywood,'' Ned Raggett described the single: Fellow Australian musician Paul Kelly recalled hearing the song for the first time while driving in Melbourne: In May 2001 "Cattle and Cane" was selected by Australasian Performing Right Association (APRA) as one of the Top 30 Australian songs of all time. "Cattle and Cane" was covered by British

indie rock Indie rock is a subgenre of rock music that originated in the United States, United Kingdom and New Zealand from the 1970s to the 1980s. Originally used to describe independent record labels, the term became associated with the music they produc ...

group

The Wedding Present The Wedding Present are an English indie rock group originally formed in 1985 in Leeds, England, from the ashes of The Lost Pandas. The band's music has evolved from fast-paced indie rock in the vein of their most obvious influences The Fall, ...

as a B-side to their 1992 single "Blue Eyes" and by Jimmy Little on his ARIA award winning 1999 album, ''The Messenger.''

Track listing

UK release # "Cattle and Cane" (McLennan, Forster) – 4:12 # "Heaven Says" (McLennan, Forster) – 4:06 Australian release # "Cattle and Cane" (McLennan, Forster) – 4:12 # " Man O'Sand to Girl O'Sea" (McLennan, Forster) – 3:24

Personnel

The Go-Betweens members *

– vocals, lead guitar, rhythm guitar *

– vocals, bass guitar, guitars *

– drums, backing vocals * Robert Vickers – bass guitar on "Man O'Sand to Girl O'Sea" Additional musicians * Bernard Clarke – organ, piano Production details * Producer – John Brand * Engineer – John Brand,

Tony Cohen Anthony Lawrence Cohen (4 June 19572 August 2017) was an Australian music record producer and sound engineer. He worked with Nick Cave's groups the Birthday Party, and then the Bad Seeds from 1979 to 2001. In mid-1986 he had followed Cave t ...

* Mastering – Ian Cooper * Tape transfer – Ingo Vauk * Studio – I.C.C. Studios,

, England

Releases

References

;General * Note: Archived n-linecopy has limited functionality. * ;Specific {{Authority control 1983 singles APRA Award winners The Go-Betweens songs 1983 songs Rough Trade Records singles Songs written by Grant McLennan Songs written by Robert Forster (musician)